h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

the supply of decent old paintings is finite. therefore, with all the media hype & renewed interest in antiques, prices are bound to go up. what should happen is that professional buyers should be appointed to sift through all the rubbish that comes up at auction, and buy the decent stuff. and investors should put their money up, like angels in the theatre, or investors in the stockmarket. then they own a share of, or several, paintings. these paintings are advertised on the internet for sale, at a modest profit. it doesn't matter if they sell or not, as they will be going up in value (if they were properly bought). investors should get a minimum of 10% return on their money, and, if they are lucky, considerably more. at the moment, art is a bad investment cos of the cost of buying & selling -- 50% of overall value if bought and sold at auction. why shouldn't it work?

what's america got to do with art??? Because it begins with 'a'???

Ancient treasure is infinite in the sense that old is a constantly expanding state. It might be truer to view future as yet unconcieved art as more valuable, because of the finite tenure of human existence.

I couldn't have said it better myself! ...An' another thing: Art should be the common property of humanity. Artists should be sustained by humanity; not sponsored by corporations or bought by billionaires.

bingo. you win. art will only live as long as the artists who create it can live.

susan-the-artist

bingo. you win. art will only live as long as the artists who create it can live.

susan-the-artist
http://2ten.com

Actually, Susan, the nature of art is that it lives on long after the artist.

"IF" someone save the art the artist created.

We all don't have Theo for a brother.

sjr

In the same way that history is created by historians, art is created by art appreciators. Thin, blithering people with no sense of irony. As soon as they call something art, the Art World is brought into action to ensure that the piece in question is A impenetrable by dint of being very uninteresting and B worth far more than it really is.